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Long-Lost Silent Films Return to America

A scene from “Why Husbands Flirt” (1918), one of some 75 silent movies, found in a New Zealand archive, being returned to the United States.Credit
National Film Preservation Foundation

A late silent feature directed by John Ford, a short comedy directed by Mabel Normand, a period drama starring Clara Bow and a group of early one-reel westerns are among a trove of long-lost American films recently found in the New Zealand Film Archive.

Some 75 of these movies, chosen for their historical and cultural importance, are in the process of being returned to the United States under the auspices of the National Film Preservation Foundation, the nonprofit, charitable affiliate of the Library of Congress’s National Film Preservation Board. (This writer is a member of the board, and has served on grant panels for the foundation, though none related to the current project.) Chris Finlayson, New Zealand’s minister for arts, culture and heritage, is expected to announce the discovery and the repatriation officially this week.

The films came to light early in 2009, when Brian Meacham, a preservationist for the Los Angeles archive of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, dropped in on colleagues at the New Zealand Film Archive in Wellington during a vacation.

“The conversation inevitably turned to what films we held in our collection,” recalled Steve Russell, the New Zealand archive’s manager of corporate services. “Brian was not surprisingly excited to learn the Film Archive held a number of non-New Zealand titles, primarily early nitrate films, including a substantial number of American films. We offered to compile a list of the U.S. material, and it was a short step to here.” Many foreign films remained in New Zealand after their commercial lives were over because the studios didn’t think the return shipping was worth the expense. “It’s one of the rare cases where the tyranny of distance has worked in our and the films’ favor,” Mr. Russell said.

Because of the importance of the John Ford film, “Upstream” — a backstage drama from 1927, a year that was a turning point in the development of one of America’s greatest filmmakers — it is being copied to modern safety film stock in a New Zealand laboratory, rather than risk loss or further damage in transit.

Although Ford was already famous as a director of epic westerns like “The Iron Horse” (1925) and “Three Bad Men” (1926), “Upstream” appears to be his first film reflecting the influence of the German director F. W. Murnau, who had arrived at Ford’s studio, Fox, in 1926 to begin work on his American masterpiece, “Sunrise.” From Murnau, Ford learned the use of forced perspectives and chiaroscuro lighting, techniques Ford would use to complement his own more direct, naturalistic style.

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“The Girl Stage Driver” (1914), with Edna Payne, and other films in the New Zealand trove underline the contribution made by women to early cinema.Credit
National Film Preservation Foundation

Richard Abel, a professor of film studies at the University of Michigan and an authority on early cinema, was one of the experts called in by the National Film Preservation Board to evaluate the inventory and establish priorities for films to be returned. “ ‘Upstream’ was an obvious choice,” Mr. Abel said, “and I suggested strongly that they do ‘Dolly of the Dailies’ with Mary Fuller, because there’s very little that survives of her films. But we were also looking to fill in gaps, which is why many of the early westerns were chosen.”

Internationally popular, westerns were an important export for the early American film industry, as were short comedies, with their broad physical humor that required no translation. The New Zealand collection features nine comedies, including the 1918 “Why Husbands Flirt” from the prolific producer-director Al Christie.

Among the discoveries are several films that underline the major contribution made by women to early cinema. “The Girl Stage Driver” (1914) belongs to a large subgenre that Mr. Abel has identified as “cowboy girl” pictures; “The Woman Hater” (1910) is an early vehicle for the serial queen Pearl White; and “Won in a Cupboard” (1914) is the earliest surviving film directed by Normand, the leading female star of Mack Sennett’s Keystone comedies. The Clara Bow film “Maytime” (1923), presents the most famous flapper of the 1920s in an unusual costume role.

Getting the films, which were printed on the unstable, highly inflammable nitrate stock used until the early 1950s, to the United States hasn’t been easy. “There’s no Federal Express for nitrate out of New Zealand,” said Annette Melville, the director of the foundation. “We’re having to ship in U.N.-approved steel barrels, a little bit at a time. So far we’ve got about one third of the films, and preservation work has already begun on four titles.”

As the films arrive, they are placed in cold storage to slow further degeneration. “We’re triaging the films,” Ms. Melville said, “so we can get to the worst case ones first. About a quarter of the films are in advanced nitrate decay, and the rest have good image quality, though they are badly shrunken.”

As funds permit, the repatriated films will be distributed among the five major nitrate preservation facilities in the United States — the Library of Congress, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, George Eastman House, the U.C.L.A. Film & Television Archive and the Museum of Modern Art — where the painstaking work of reclaiming images from material slowly turning to muck will be performed.

Sony, the corporation that currently owns the Columbia library, has assumed the costs for “Mary of the Movies,” a 1923 comedy that is now the earliest Columbia feature known to survive. And 20th Century Fox, a descendant of the studio that made “Upstream,” has taken responsibility for preservation of that title. If all goes well, the restored “Upstream” will be receive its repremiere at the Academy in September.